The present invention relates to content delivery over a large computer network, and more particularly to a computer network architecture which integrates management components such as a reservation system, a funds flow system, a metering system, and a security system for preventing unauthorized use of courseware and other content.
More and more paintings, pictures, books, songs, other performances, texts, diagrams, recordings, video clips, and courses utilizing them for instructional purposes and/or entertainment are becoming available in machine readable forms. In particular, many computer-assisted lessons, training materials, and other instructional courses include works which can be protected under intellectual property laws, such as visual works, audio works, texts, examinations, simulations, and other works. Some sensory works experienced while using computers, such as the physical motions performed with a flight simulator, may also be protected. Still other computer-aided sensory experiences are foreseeable but not yet commercially implemented, such as smells that could enhance a fire fighting course or a course on the detection of illegal drugs. These will also benefit from protection.
xe2x80x9cComputerized trainingxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccomputer-assisted instructionxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccomputer-aided learningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cweb-based trainingxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cintranet-based learningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cweb coursesxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cvirtual universityxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccomputerized curriculum delivery systemxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccourseware delivery systemxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cinstructional management systemxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cinteractive educational methodxe2x80x9d, and similar phrases are used by various people in various ways, but each of these terms refers to efforts to use computers to help educate students. As used here, xe2x80x9cstudentsxe2x80x9d are not necessarily traditional students enrolled in high schools, colleges, universities, and the like, but are rather people who receive instruction through courseware. Courseware may be used by traditional students, but it may also be used by employees of government agencies and corporations, for instance.
To better understand the present invention in the context of existing computer-assisted educational efforts, it will helpful to understand certain distinctions, including without limitation the following:
Course authoring vs. course content delivery;
Stand-alone computer-based training vs. networked instruction;
Synchronous sharing vs. asynchronous sharing;
Commercial systems vs. academic systems; and
Technical vs. legal means for securing intellectual property.
Courseware vs. other content
Many uses of computers to facilitate education focus on providing authoring tools and authoring environments. For instance, tools for authoring include tools for re-formatting text into HTML format and adding hyperlinks; tools for integrating audio and/or video content with text content; and tools for creating interactive forms to obtain information from students and provide appropriate responses. In short, authoring tools help instructors create courseware content.
By contrast, delivery tools help deliver courseware to students. In the case of xe2x80x9cweb-based trainingxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cintranet-based learningxe2x80x9d, and xe2x80x9cweb coursesxe2x80x9d, delivery tools typically include TCP/IP networks and web browsers. Computer workstations themselves may also be viewed as delivery tools, particularly when the courseware is written to be used on a stand-alone computer rather than being delivered over a network connection.
Many existing approaches to computer-aided teaching include both authoring and delivery components. However, the problems and solutions associated with authoring are not necessarily the same as those associated with delivery. The present invention is concerned primarily with delivery as opposed to authoring.
Many computer-based training systems do not require a network connection in order to function. All necessary courseware content is stored on a computer disk, CD-ROM, or other medium which is directly accessible to the computer being used by the student, making it unnecessary to send any content over a network connection. The tools and techniques for managing courseware content in such stand-alone systems are basically the same as the tools and techniques for managing application programs, operating systems, and other types of software installed on user workstations, namely written licenses, disk copy-protection schemes, license serial numbers, and the like.
By contrast, network-based training approaches either take advantage of a network connection if one is available, or else they require such a connection. Different network-based systems use the network in different ways. Sometimes courseware content is stored on a server and delivered over the network to users as needed. In some cases, part or all of the content is stored on the local network node but licensing is enforced through a server. For instance, the content stored locally might be encrypted, and the decryption key might be available only from the server and then only after the user is authenticated. Some network-based educational systems allow students to interact with one another and/or with the instructor through email or chat rooms. Some systems administer tests by having the student send test answers to a server, which grades the test and notifies the student of the results. Some systems provide instructors with access over the network to a database of administrative information such as student grades and a list of the students who have viewed a given lesson. Of course, many systems combine one or more of these features and some also use networks in other ways.
The present invention is concerned with network-based courseware delivery systems, as opposed to stand-alone courseware delivery systems.
Networked courseware delivery systems may share content between multiple users synchronously or asynchronously. With synchronous sharing, users and/or instructors exchange information in a real-time or interactive way. Examples of synchronous sharing include telephone conversations, video conferencing, and chat rooms. By contrast, asynchronous sharing involves an exchange of information in which the participants expect substantial delays, or they involve a one-way flow of information rather than an exchange. Examples of asynchronous sharing include downloading a previously created multimedia presentation, listserv exchanges, and Usenet postings. Email does not fit neatly in either category, because it can be either synchronous or asynchronous in practice.
Some aspects of the present invention are concerned with asynchronous sharing, and in particular with asynchronous delivery of previously created courseware content. However, other aspects of the invention are concerned with synchronous information exchanges, such as funds transfers.
As noted, some courseware students attend traditional institutions of higher education. In many cases, those students pay for their use of courseware by paying tuition to the institution. If the institution is not the owner of the courseware, the institution then makes separate arrangements for payment to the owner. Likewise, students who are employees of a government agency or corporation generally receive access to courseware through their employer without personally making arrangements to pay the courseware owner directly. In either case, at the time a student sits down to actually use the course-ware it may be necessary to authenticate the student to the system but it is not necessary for the student to provide a credit card number or similar payment mechanism. For convenience, courseware management systems which do not require direct payment from students are referred to herein as xe2x80x9cacademic systemsxe2x80x9d.
By contrast, in xe2x80x9ccommercial systemsxe2x80x9d some provision must be made for funds transfer before a student is given full access to courseware content (although a demo might be available at no charge). For instance, each student may be required to provide a credit card number, to pre-pay for access by giving cash or a check to an attendant, or to provide individual billing information if credit is being extended.
The present invention is concerned primarily with commercial courseware delivery systems as opposed to academic courseware delivery systems.
As time passes, personal computers and other computational devices are able to record into machine readable form more and more complex presentations or experiences. For example, personal computers in the 1980""s mainly manipulated words, numbers, and characters; in the 1990""s manipulation of icons, images, audio and video has become commonplace. The next step may include widespread use of motion, as in simulators, and perhaps smell or other additions. As the complexity of the process needed to place these words, images, and other sensory experiences into machine readable form increases, the value of computer software that presents these experiences increases. This increases in turn the value of a security system which enforces courseware license agreements.
Intellectual property rights are provided by copyright and other laws to encourage creative effort by artists, authors, and other people who create paintings, photographs, animations, musical works, instructional texts, and other works. These works can be stored, presented, and utilized in many ways. With the increasing availability of powerful computers, many works that were traditionally available on paper, canvas, or tape are now stored in computer hard drives and computer RAM (random access memory), and are displayed on computer monitors such as cathode ray tube screens and liquid crystal displays.
Early computers provided minimal technical security means. On early personal computers, for instance, typing xe2x80x9ccopy *.*xe2x80x9d would direct the computer to copy every file or program in a directory. Further simple keystrokes, such as xe2x80x9ccopy C:/*.* A:/*.*xe2x80x9d would direct the computer to place the new copies in a new physical location, perhaps copying everything from a disk directory in drive C to a portable disk in drive A. Even today most personal computers routinely provide an environment that makes it relatively easy to copy electronic information in the form of files.
Of course, technical means are not the only way to protect intellectual property rights; legal tools in the form of license agreements are widely used. Perhaps the most widespread license agreement is a single workstation agreement. In exchange for a license fee or an outright purchase price, a set of disks or a CD-ROM containing digitized works and/or executable code is transferred to the purchaser, often with books and/or instructions on paper. Sometimes the works are transferred over a network such as the Internet in digital form. The purchaser is typically informed that the code or information may be used an unlimited number of times on a single workstation or other computer.
This approach worked fairly well in the day of the stand-alone personal computer. It does require that the producer of the code or other protectable work place some trust in the buyer, since the buyer often could copy the code or information onto more than one computer. The barriers were mainly legal, not technical. In locations where intellectual property was not a well-established and respected concept, widespread copying of information and executable code reduced income and profits to producers of computer based information and applications by diverting income and profits to illicit xe2x80x9cfactoriesxe2x80x9d which reproduced computer disks and CD-ROMs without permission from the rightful owner.
Many technical protection schemes were developed to combat the ability of the market to reproduce information without payment to the owner. Some xe2x80x9ccopy-protectionxe2x80x9d schemes made it difficult to make copies, regardless of the legitimacy (e.g. for unauthorized resale versus for proper backup) of the copies.
Other schemes defined zones of control on a CD-ROM and made a xe2x80x9ckeyxe2x80x9d necessary to read the zones. For instance, if a CD-ROM had 600 megabytes of information on it, a person might buy the legal right to see, view, or use 100 megabytes for $50.00. Information would be available in the first 100 megabyte zone regarding the contents and cost of information in the second or third 100 megabytes. For an additional fee or fees, the viewer could obtain the key to additional segments of the CD-ROM. For instance, a second $50 might buy the right to use the second 100 megabytes and a third $50 fee might permit the use of the third 100 megabytes.
A problem with this approach (and with copy-protection schemes) is that once a single purchase has been made of all the information, or access to all the information on the disk or CD-ROM has been obtained once, the information could be reproduced at will. An unauthorized factory could produce thousands of copies to be resold with no benefit to the rightful owner of the intellectual property.
Similar problems exist with the site license approach to protecting intellectual property. A licensed site such as a corporation or a government agency obtains the right to use a program or digitized information from the intellectual property owner, and is given a set of disks, CD-ROMs, or file-server-based copies of the licensed work for authorized internal use. The intellectual property owner relies upon the corporation or agency not to share the information or program outside the bounds of the license. But the major tool for enforcing the license agreement was not technical. Instead, it was respect for the law and the agreement. Unfortunately, some corporations and even some government agencies were staffed, at least in part, by people willing to take home a copy of the software or other licensed work and share it or sell it to an illegal copying factory.
Under a common relationship between works of intellectual property and the Internet, users view courseware and other information for free. The information is shared for free because providing the information helps the work""s owner sell a product, or saves the owner money by reducing technical support costs, for example. In the research community, huge sets of information are regularly exchanged via file transfer protocol or other digital means. Similarly, information in courses can be made available on the web, and can be viewed via a browser.
The present invention relates to protecting content both by technical means and by legal mechanisms. Although some information may be shared for free within a system according to the invention, much of the information available through the inventive system is provided only in exchange for license fees or the like paid by students or their employers.
Those of skill in the art will recognize that many of the comments above apply not only to courseware, but also to other types of digital content, including without limitation musical recordings, visual images, and the like. Such content may appear as components of multimedia courseware, but it may also be distributed independently of courseware and/or for purposes other than education. As used herein, xe2x80x9ccontentxe2x80x9d includes both courseware and other kinds of digital content.
In addition to the considerations above, certain trends are worth noting. Many courses are available on the web, yet in general the more attractive the course is (visually, in activity, motion, video, sound, and so on), the more time it takes to refresh the computer screen at the user""s workstation. To reduce download time, more and more bandwidth is requested. Users go from a POTS (xe2x80x9cplain old telephone systemxe2x80x9d) line, to an ISDN line to a T1 line, with increasing costs at each stage. However, the cost of computer storage is dropping rapidly. As most machine readable classes remain less than a gigabyte in size, the cost of forward storing a machine-readable class to the personal computer owner wishing to take the class is dropping rapidly.
As the speed of market developments in the computer industry increase, the delay and cost of obtaining legal remedies increase, and the technical ease of copying and distributing electronic information increases dramatically with the interconnections available via the Internet, improved tools for managing courseware are needed.
As discussed above, a wide range of computer-assisted educational features and capabilities have been explored, at least to some extent. However, existing approaches have been less successful at combining these features and capabilities into an architecture which securely and effectively shares commercial courseware. Accordingly, it would be an advancement in the art to provide an improved computer architecture for sharing commercial courseware and other content over a network.
The present invention provides improved capabilities for managing courseware and other content in a shared use operating environment such as a computer network. In particular, the invention provides a commercial networked content delivery method and system which does not exclude synchronous sharing but is focused on asynchronous sharing.
One method of the invention operates in a network containing a registration server, a content server connected to the registration server, and several client work-stations connected to the content server. After a user registers with the registration server and requests access, the content server authenticates the request and serves the content to the client workstation for presentation to the user. Content may be moved by the system between content servers in response to actual or anticipated user requests; users may reserve courses for later viewing. If the target content server lacks room to receive the incoming content, the system makes a recommendation to the local administrator as to which content should be deleted from the content server in order to make additional room.
Courseware and other content managed by the system may contain one or more xe2x80x9ccritical portionsxe2x80x9d which have been treated to prevent their unauthorized use and thereby enhance the protection of intellectual property rights in the content by technical means. For example, the treating step may insert disabling code into an executable portion of courseware, may encapsulate the critical portion in a database table, may compress the critical portion, and/or may encrypt the critical portion. In addition, the content server and/or client workstation may disable use of a critical portion if an expected security handshake is not received. Caching and other disk writes at the client may also be disabled to prevent a permanent copy of the critical portion from being created at the client. To take advantage of low cost telephone connections, part or all of the content may be downloaded to the client workstation one or more hours before serving the critical portion.
The system also monitors the connection between content server and client, and meters use of the content so that the user pays only for actual use. Pre-existing works can be metered without being modified. In some cases, however, a metering security module is injected by linking or recompilation into the machine readable form of a work that contains legally protectable intellectual property. Adding the metering security module alters the system, such as by inserting disabling code, so that the system will not play or display the content unless the metering security module is operating. xe2x80x9cPlayingxe2x80x9d a work includes displaying it, executing it, digitally manipulating it, or otherwise performing an act governed by the license agreement or by relevant intellectual property law. Unless the metering security module is engaged and authorizes the use, a monitor will not display certain protected words or images or motion images, speakers will not play certain protected sounds, motion simulators will not perform certain protected motions, and so forth.
The user receives an invoice for use of the courseware or other content. A local administrator can be authorized to adjust invoices in response to user requests. For instance, the administrator may determine that the user did not finish viewing the course in question, or accidentally started the wrong course, and then reduce the charges on that basis. If the user previously provided a credit card payment authorization to permit payment by credit card, a finds flow manager makes appropriate adjustments to the credit card charges.
In short, the architecture of the present invention provides improved security, efficiency, and convenience for the management of courseware or other content in a shared operating environment such as a network or a collection of loosely coupled networks. For instance, additional security is provided by separating registration information from content, by identifying and treating critical portions, and by monitoring the connection over which content is supplied to a client. Convenience and efficiency are provided by optional early downloading, by reservation capabilities, and by a combination of automatic and local administrator control. Additional features and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent through the following description.